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Our research shows that Zoho CRM is better than Zoho Bigin, thanks to its impressive feature catalog, robust support options, and thorough customizability.
This shouldn’t be too surprising, though, as Zoho Bigin is the budget platform aimed at smaller businesses. Given that fact, Zoho Bigin is notably more affordable than Zoho CRM. However, from a value standpoint, we have to still give the edge to Zoho CRM, even for small businesses.
In fact, according to our research, Zoho CRM is the best CRM small businesses can buy, as it undercuts most platforms on cost while providing one of the largest feature catalogs in the industry.
Below, we’ll explain some of the key differences between Zoho CRM and Bigin, compare the different price points, and see how they match up against other CRM providers. And, if you’re looking to get started with a CRM today, take a look at our CRM Deals page for more information on the latest offers.
Bigin vs Zoho CRM: Key Differences
Again, the most important difference between Zoho CRM and Zoho Bigin is that the former is the fully functional CRM with lots of features, whereas the latter is a stripped-down, affordable version that is aimed at very small businesses looking to save a bit of money. More specifically, Zoho CRM offers more contacts, better support, more advanced reporting, and generally more features for conducting business. Zoho Bigin, on the other hand, comes in at a lower price, which is always an attractive perk, especially for small businesses. But that’s really it’s only edge.
To compare them as aptly as possible, we’ve highlighted one plan from each provider that our research shows are the best options for small businesses: the Professional plan from Zoho CRM and the Express plan from Zoho Bigin. Each of these plans provide the tools, usability, and affordability necessary to make business a bit easier for teams that haven’t reached the enterprise level just yet.
In this guide:
Plan | Price Billed annually | Free Trial | Users | Storage | Support | Contact limit | Social Media Channels | Lead scoring | Try it | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Zoho Bigin | |||||||||||
Express | Professional | ||||||||||
15 days | 15 days | ||||||||||
Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||||
1 GB | User: 20MB | ||||||||||
| Live chat, phone, email | ||||||||||
50,000 | 5 million | ||||||||||
| Facebook, Twitter | ||||||||||
| | ||||||||||
Get Quotes | Try Zoho CRM |
Zoho CRM
If you’ve looked into any business software, you’ve likely heard of the Zoho family of apps. The brand offers a massive selection of quality services, from invoice software to social media management platforms, and that means the company knows what it’s doing with its CRM software.
The Zoho CRM platform is the best of both worlds when it comes to CRM. It offers a whole of features without costing too much. You’ll be able to handle sales, marketing, and customer support with Zoho CRM with advanced features like automated lead scoring, marketing email design editor, and customer service case management.
In fact, Zoho CRM is such a good value as far as features and price are concerned that it was rated the best CRM for small businesses in our in-depth research of the industry. It’s comprehensive, easy to use and setup, and provides lots of features in all three major CRM categories. Here are a few pros and cons to take a look at, along with some screenshots of the software to get a good idea of what you’re in for.
Pros
- 15-day free trial
- Includes sales and marketing functionality available in free plan
- Highly customizable dashboards and fields across platform
- Integrate with other Zoho services or the vast app library
Cons
- No spam prevention on web forms
- Onboarding assistance for your team costs extra
- Team management functionality lacks with limited storage space
Zoho Bigin
Now, while Zoho CRM prices are decidedly reasonable in the CRM market, smaller business may be looking to save a bit of money if they don’t need all those features. That’s where Zoho Bigin comes in handy, an even more affordable option, aimed at small teams that still want to take advantage of the quality software Zoho offers.
Zoho Bigin definitely has fewer features than Zoho CRM, that’s a given with the lower price. However, compared to other small business offerings for CRM, Zoho Bigin is nothing to scoff at, providing surprising robust email campaign features, particularly when it comes to contact management. Even the reporting is impressive, which provides you with the valuable information you need to improve your business.
Where you take a hit with Zoho Bigin, though, is customer service, lead management, and support and help, all of which offer notably fewer features than Zoho CRM. Still, if you need to save money, you’ll get more than half off by opting for Zoho Bigin, which every small business is likely to consider in a pinch.
Pros
- 15-day free trial
- Very low-cost platform w/ free plan for small businesses
- Fully customizable dashboard for clear data visualizations
- Unique social media integrations
Cons
- No live help or support
- Limited marketing and lead gen features
- No invoicing or quoting functionality
How Did We Research Bigin vs Zoho CRM?
Let’s be honest, Tech.co probably isn’t the first or last software comparison website you’ve visited in your search for the perfect CRM. However, you can rest assured that here at Tech.co, you’re getting the most up to date, well-informed research on business software like CRM around. Our research is unbiased and independent, providing the recommendations backed up by numbers and statistics.
Our in-depth research is designed to help you make an informed decision right away. For CRM software specifically, we focus on metrics like pricing, features, usability, help and support, training and onboarding, and customizability, as we found these to be the core criteria that most businesses are investigating.
Bigin vs Zoho CRM: Pricing Plans
All of the Zoho CRM pricing plans are more expensive than Zoho Bigin, but you obviously get a lot more bang for your buck. Take a look at how the pricing of these two CRM options match up against each other below.
Zoho CRM Pricing
Zoho CRM has fiving pricing plans, in addition to a free forever plan: Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, and Plus.
The Standard plan costs $14 per user per month, and it offers the most limited of the plans, missing out on features like ecommerce functionality, quotes and invoicing, and any customer service options at all. The Professional plan, which costs $23 per user per month is where the real value lies, unlocking all those features for a surprisingly small increase in price. This is the plan we believe to be the best option, especially for small businesses.
The Enterprise plan at $40 per user per month and the Ultimate plan at $52 per user per month are clearly aimed at larger businesses. They add options like multi-user portals and advanced customization, with the latter adding more robust analytics and a longer free trial.
Finally, the Plus plan, which costs $57 per user per month, is more than a CRM but a full-on unified communications experience platform that can handle everything from email and social media marketing to social media management and analytics.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Users | Storage | Support | Lead scoring | API | Custom reports | Custom automation builder | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TRY FOR FREE | BEST FOR SMB | ||||||||
Free | Standard | Professional | Enterprise | Ultimate | Plus | ||||
3 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||
User: n/a | User: n/a | User: 20MB | User: 50MB | User: 100mb | User: 1GB | ||||
Basic | Standard | Live chat, phone, email | Standard | 24/7 live | 24/7 live | ||||
| | | | | | ||||
| | | | | | ||||
| Max 100 | | | | | ||||
| | | | | |
Zoho Bigin Pricing
Zoho Bigin only offers two pricing plans, in addition to a free forever plan: Express and Premier.
The Express plan costs only $7 per user per month, making it a decidedly attractive option for small businesses. While it obviously doesn’t offer as many features as Zoho CRM, the Express plan offers a solid email marketing platform and a lot of customizability, making it the perfect budget choice for those smaller teams.
The Premier plan costs only $12 per user per month, which is still very competitive within the CRM industry. This plan gives you access to more profiles, more customizability, and more automation, which can save your team time when they need it. Plus, you unlock the ability to accept multiple currencies, which certainly doesn’t hurt.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Free Trial | Users | Storage | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
BEST FOR SMB | |||||
Free | Express | Premier | |||
15 days | 15 days | 15 days | |||
1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
1 GB | 1 GB | 1 GB |
Best for Business Features: Zoho CRM
We’re going to let you know right out of the gate: Zoho CRM is better than Zoho Bigin at virtually everything, particularly business features. Simply put, it just has more in every category, from sales to marketing to customer service.
However, it’s important to remember that Zoho Bigin is a much more affordable platform aimed at smaller businesses, so it’s about deciding whether or not the feature in question is worth the price.
That said, while Zoho CRM offers better business features, Zoho Bigin provides the most value when it comes to email marketing. If you’re primarily looking for a CRM that offers email marketing and nothing else, we’d highly recommend investigating whether or not Zoho Bigin is the right fit for you.
Best for Customization: Zoho CRM
Again, Zoho CRM is definitely more customizable than Zoho Bigin, but honestly not by much. Customization is one of the metrics between these two CRM that is close, with Zoho Bigin limiting the number of custom fields more than Zoho CRM, and not allowing any custom objects.
Still, both Zoho Bigin and Zoho CRM a custom dashboard, a customizable sales pipeline, fully editable contact fields, and custom task types. You’ll also be able to integrate existing email address, which is always convenient when setting up a new software. Suffice it to say, when it comes to customization, Zoho CRM has the edge by a hair.
Best for Help & Support: Zoho CRM
Unlike with customization, Zoho CRM has a clear advantage over Zoho Bigin when it comes to help and support. Zoho CRM offers live chat, phone, and email support, whereas Zoho Bigin only offers email support.
Zoho CRM also offers 24/7 support on the more expensive plans, which Zoho Bigin definitely does not. However, both CRM offer knowledge base center and forum support, which let’s be honest is the least they can do.
Best for Training and Onboarding: Zoho CRM
We’d hate to sound like we’re repeating ourselves here, but Zoho CRM is better than Zoho Bigin when it comes to training and onboarding as well. Simply put, Zoho CRM offers onboarding at an additional cost, which Zoho Bigin does not.
The additional charges for training and onboarding range from 20% to 25% of the licensing fee, depending on whether you opt for the Premium or Enterprise level support plans.
How do Zoho Bigin and Zoho CRM compare to other CRM providers?
Our research shows that Zoho CRM is the best CRM for small business and Zoho Bigin remains one of the most affordable options in the entire industry. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re the perfect fit for your business. Luckily, there are plenty of options out there that could suit you better, and we’ve done the research to help you decide.
Check out the table below to get a good idea of what kind of CRM providers are out there for small businesses and keep scrolling for a more in-depth look at some of our other top choices.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Free Trial | Users | Storage | Rating Based on usability, customization, functionality, pricing, and help and support | Try it | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPONSORED | BEST OVERALL | BEST VALUE | |||||||
Salesforce Sales Cloud | HubSpot | ||||||||
Starter Suite | Professional | Free | Growth | Pro | Express | Sell Team | Advanced | Less Annoying CRM | Cloud |
30 days | 15 days | | 21 days | 14 days | 15 days | | 14 days | 30 days | 14 days |
325 max. | Unlimited | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
File storage: 1GB | User: 20MB | Unlimited | 2 GB | 100 GB | 1 GB | 2GB per user | Unlimited | 10 GB per user | 6GB |
3.8 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.2 |
Try Salesforce | Try Zoho CRM | Get started free | Try Freshsales | Try monday CRM | Try Zoho Bigin | Try Zendesk | Try Pipedrive | Try LACRM | Try Act! CRM |
Verdict: Which CRM is better?
Our research shows that Zoho CRM is clearly better than Zoho Bigin, due to its plentiful features, comprehensive customizability, and solid help and support channels. Again, this makes sense, considering Bigin is the low-price CRM aimed at smaller businesses trying to get in the door. Subsequently, Zoho Bigin is more affordable than Zoho CRM, but we’d still give the value edge to the latter, given how much you get for a still reasonable price.
We consider Zoho CRM to be the best CRM for small businesses, and Zoho Bigin is one of the most affordable CRM on the market, but there are always other options out there. For more information about CRM providers, check out our CRM comparison page now.
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